French Synagogue Vandalized For Third Time in Ten Days

A synagogue in Paris was vandalized Wednesday night, the third such incident within a ten-day period.

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Rachel Hirshfeld , 13/07/12 13:38

French police

Reuters

The synagogue of Noisy-le-Grand of the Seine-Saint-Denis district in Paris, was vandalized on Wednesday night, in the third such incident within a ten-day period, The Algemeiner reported.

“I am 73 years old and I cried like a child,” synagogue caretaker Maurice Zana told Anach Infos, a French-language Jewish news website.

“They came to plunder, but all in all they took only two vacuum cleaners,” Zana said. “They must have been upset that there was nothing else to take.”

The perpetrators threw prayer books and shawls on to the floor and shattered windows. “They vandalized the walls, tables, clocks and the floor,” Zana continued. “They ransacked all the drawers where tallisim (prayer shawls) are kept, they threw the holy books on the floor.”

The Bureau National de Vigilance Contr L’Antisemtisme (BNVCA), a French anti-Semitism watchdog, has alerted the authorities of the incident, calling for additional measures to be implemented in order to prevent further hate crimes.

“Despite the measures taken, things persist, and I think that we need additional legislation, because the Jewish community is angered,’’ said BNVCA president Sammy Ghozlan.

Recently, there has been a surge of anti-Semitic incidents in France, causing concern in the Jewish community.

In March, a Muslim gunman murdered a rabbi and three Jewish children at the Ozar HaTorah school in Toulouse.

In June, France’s Chief Rabbi Gilles Bernheim received death threats which were contained in a viciously anti-Semitic document sent via Facebook.

In July, three men were arrested France for attacking an 18-year-old Jewish man in a suburb outside Paris.

Several days before that, an anti-Semitic gang attacked three young Jewish men with hammers and iron bars in the French city of Lyon. Two of the victims required hospital care.

In response to the increasing anti-Semitic incidents in the country, the French Ministry of Interior issued a statement expressing its determination "to combat the resurgence of this great evil that is anti-Semitism," adding that "it is an insult to the values and history of our Republic."